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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25560106">The Sun Has Set on Me</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/temis/pseuds/temis'>temis</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Old Guard (Movie 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Booker Only Turns In Himself, Copley's board of doom, Copley's hyperfixation, F/F, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Minor Character Death, Suicidal Thoughts</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 12:08:44</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,237</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25560106</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/temis/pseuds/temis</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Booker had decided to let Merrick run experiments on him, but not to involve the others?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>106</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>326</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. The sun is set on me</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I started writing after this  <a href="https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/under-jailbreak/624636900291084288">post</a> because the idea wouldn't leave me alone - the next chapter may take awhile because I have exams, but we will see how it goes</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The idea hadn’t crystallized yet into action. It didn’t feel right to leave without seeing the others, feeling the warmth of company he only had with them, no lies, no pretense, just the weight of shared history, hardships, horrors and wonders interspaced by the cold moments of loneliness, when they retreat to their own comfort spaces.</p><p>The nightmares and memories fill his mind then. He wishes Quynh didn’t haunt his dreams still, that her name didn’t etch grief and guilt and sorrow into Andy’s face, or made Joe and Nicky break from their bubble and crash into reality. He hates sleeping, but he cannot hate Quynh, not when he gets glimpses and pieces of her panic, enshrined in her cage: wake up, beat the coffin with her hands, drown and start again. It took him years to bear being near the ocean when there isn’t a mission to distract him from fog fragments of phantom pain. He still dislikes the very smell of saltwater. </p><p>If it’s not Quynh, it’s his family - the last days with his wife, watching her slowly die as he was powerless to do anything - couldn’t help her, couldn’t die with her. Useless. Hearing his sons cries, trying to comfort them as best as he was able, seeing them grow up and realize (realizing it himself) that he wasn’t - he did not change, he did not age. And he couldn’t die. It was different - hearing and seeing it was not the same as the slow understanding that dawns after he watches the world move without marking his face and body, as the people he knew and loved slowly died with anger, disgust and greed in their eyes, wanting his never ending vitality and time (as if it was a gift, and not a curse, bitter years widening into a future he has no desire to see. He would have given them everything if he could).</p><p>In the intertwining time between his mortal family and his immortal one, he preserves his books (a worn “Fables” of La Fontaine and a well loved “Les jardins, ou L'art d'embellir les paysages” by Delille). In time, he would add others, first editions, books signed by the authors and luxury items alike, but those two were the ones carried with him wherever they went, the memories remembered bittersweet. </p><p>He washed away the acrid taste with brandy, cognac, whiskey, vodka, beer. Anything and everything he could get his hands on. The only care he has is when they are all together - then, he lowers the amount he drinks (drowning in it, like Quynh in her coffin, like his second son in the black-blood) so he can be useful in their contracts. If there’s not enough time before their meeting, normally a quick death will take care of the poison in his veins. </p><p>He keeps abreast of technology better than the others, as a way to be worthy of being family (he’s a coward, has always been a coward - and what is one to do when compared with warriors such as the company he now keeps?), though he still regrets  explaining to Andy what exactly a cell phone with a GPS could do (her paranoia skyrocketed to unprecedented levels since).</p><p>The missions help - he doesn’t share Nicky’s certainty that they are doing good, Joe's cheer at helping an innocent or Andy’s unwavering search for purpose, for hope or something good to show after centuries and millenniums of fighting the worst of humanity (it changes forms, names, but always there - disregard for others’ freedom, life or needs), but he needs to be able to fight, to think and help, so he focuses on the here and now, always when he is with them.</p><p>It became a part of his agreement with Copley - a last meaningful mission, before surrendering himself - before making his own meaningful contribution and hopefully end his curse at the same time. He thought about telling Andy - about taking her with him, recognizing the same tiredness, the sorrow and bitterness (always going forward, even though it <em>hurts</em>, too stubborn to lay down and give up, surviving and wishing she didn’t - like him), but that would leave Joe and Nicky alone. And while both of them are capable of forgetting the world when around each other - he can't take the warmth, the sheer love they have not only for each other, but also for her - little rituals created in centuries past showing love and care (with food, with hugs, private jokes and a simple smile), when Andy looks alive again, and not just a stone statue brought to life, their warmth affecting and changing her (he hoped they would succeeded, would give her more to live for than what the world had taken away). </p><p>Thinking about Joe and Nicky (Niccolo and Yusuf, Joseph and Nicholas, always one-in-two) flares the envy in him. After he had met them, it burned. How happy they were, sufficient in themselves with the eternity before them as a pleasurable adventure. Such feelings were the cause of his own shame. Joe had more than once drawn him from his more dreadful memories by discussing poetry, politics and football, the man’s smiles, touches and loquacity occupying the room and banishing the shadows from his mind for a time, while Nicky offered him a grounding - his motherland recipes redone, colors and flavours hand in hand with stories of  faraway lands, ridiculous situations or beauty - in forgotten ruins, distant nature or unforeseen kindness, remaking tense dinners and silent lunches with laughter and warmth.</p><p>Sometimes he can’t bear to look at them, out of disgust with himself. Others, it is the mix of happiness-guilt-longing in Andy’s eyes and granite countenance that draws his attention away (he aches for her - and wonders if he wasn’t better this way, alone rather than having lost perfection and having to live with the knowledge of what you had lost - she’s much stronger than he is, than all of them are). </p><p>He would miss them.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Slow and sad, getting sadder</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Copley focused chapter - because in someways, it all started with him.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I always wondered how Copley found them, and how he pieced together what and who they were, so this is a bi of it.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>For a long time, his research was what got him through the days - when his wife was resting, and her slow, unrelenting illness preyed on his mind, with the what ifs and possible drugs to try. Some people with ALS  were able to live with it for decades. His Anne had less than four years. Raging against destiny in rest moments (why her? Why not me?) and her doctors when they would not try harder, when they would dismiss his findings (unpredictable side effects, possible disabilities, no proof of effectiveness) and instead be told to do his best for his wife - as if he wasn’t already, in using what skills he had. </p><p>As if he hadn’t learned all the exercises so she didn’t have to go to the hospital for the basic physio exercises - a way for them to have more time together. Time that kept slipping through his hands, at the same time short (too short compared to what it should be) and too long in seeing her suffer at his side, losing more and more of her independence, of what made her laugh and cry and live.</p><p>At those times, he changed direction in his research. It was a side quest, nothing more than a palate cleanser before being submerged again in his search for better studies, alternative medicine and methods - a hope, even if slight of something better than the prognosis science gave Anne. </p><p>The ghosts, as they were known in the espionage/military circles, were rather choosy for mercenaries, never taking a job from the same handler twice, never helping in coups or terrorism acts, preferring rescue and attack missions where the morality was clear cut, accepting no help from other groups or even backup from their employers. In a world more and more dominated by cameras, there were no records of their faces caught on video. And for all the work they do (sometimes interspaced by years, sometimes one after the other), not one of the other handlers James has talked with can remember the last time they failed - the only situation something like that happened, the employer had misled the team about the nature of the job, from a rescue to a kidnapping. Two week later, the target was left in a more secure position than the one they had been in, and the respective handler was later found dead, files wiped clean, cameras destroyed. Nothing that could be used to trace them. Ghosts.</p><p>As his wife condition deteriorated, he had to give up all research on her condition (on a cure) - the moments were too precious for him to be glued to his computer now. He spent hours reading to Anne, her Jane Austen collection, starting with Sense and Sensibility during the nights, Poe in the rays of morning at home, then later on the books she always wished to read but didn’t have the time, now he read to her every day, until she died in the hospital. </p><p>The time after was blurry. He couldn’t go back to work, didn’t want to go back. But his talents lay in research, in finding the the points that matched in a whirlwind of information, restoring connections wiped away by design or buried under luck and chance. So it becomes his obsession - finding a drug or treatment for ALS. It also soothes him - a part of ritual, reinforcing his memories of Anne, imagining she would be in their room when he stopped. As a result of this, he also had a small file on the ghosts, grouping together all the information and gossip he could get on them.</p><p>Some of it was proven - namely the email used and the member who served as the first contact and screened the missions the group took or rejected. A man who called himself Booker. The alias seemed to be a relic - from the oldest retired handler to the most recent employer, always the same nickname was mentioned. The different periods of time they were active (from the earliest memories, starting from 1950) to current actions indicated that they were not the original group. It was a common held belief in the mercenary community that the current incarnation of the ghosts was composed either of descendants or apprentices/protegee of the original group. There was no other plausible explanation, specially when he went backwards and found documentation through his ex-colleagues of activity that fit to a T their modus operandi (the requirements, the way payment was sent, missions which were accepted or rejected), but years before any of the present group could have been born. </p><p>At least, there wasn’t until he started piecing together similarities. Everyone he talked with about them gave similar descriptions for the contact with Booker (was it the name of the position? Perhaps the name of the first person who assumed the role) - a man with a sliver of accent that seemed to be French, who drank while finalizing the details of the job. There weren’t photos of the previous Booker(s?), but he had a breakthrough with an acquaintance - a MI6 retiree that had taken up drawing as a hobby, doing landscapes and portraits, including one of the Booker of his generation. </p><p>His face was exactly the same of the man he had contacted five years ago. Different beard and hair, but the facial structure was the same, as was the coloring. Family resemblance couldn’t account for the fact the portrait seemed to be of the same man he himself had seen, 50 years later. The mystery only deepened when he utilized a face recognition program after modelling the portrait.</p><p>He thought he could find other examples, lay to rest the impossible connection between past portrait and his own memories. Instead, as he searches historical archives the connection grows stronger - handsome features unchanged while styles of clothes shift with time - the earliest picture found in the last years of 18th  century, the latest his own memory. Other patterns repeat - Booker’s companions - not always three, but the same profiles repeated over and over for more than two hundred years - if there weren’t paintings registering the earlier years he would have thought they cloned themselves.</p><p>When he searched for the other three, he stared. Their stories didn’t go back just a hundred years - but <em>millennia.</em> The two men were mostly found in paintings of the Renaissance before modern times, with hints of earlier appearances, normally together. There were records of the woman (Andromache?) as early as <em>Antique</em> <em>Greece</em>, with statues, and as he delved deeper, entire stories and pages of epithets attached to her.</p><p>He sits with that information, staring at the photo, comparing, wondering if such a thing was even possible… But it would make <em> sense </em> - the mercenaries’ paranoia, the way they avoided help from outsiders, relying only on themselves, how they always won, even against numerically superior enemies in entrenched positions and how they never took repeat jobs - because people would notice (didn’t age, didn’t die, like a pinned down butterfly).</p><p>He had to walk away then. Because according to his research there was a woman walking around the Earth that was at least three millennia old, but his own Anne wasn’t afforded more than measly forty years.</p><p>Going to the gym, working his muscles until tiredness settled in, and even then it wasn’t enough to silence his mind. Standing in front of it all again (now spread through two laptops, a pile of books on Renaissance art and more scribblings than he could count), he looked for more information, a definitive proof of when and where the four of them acted - the what echoing in his mind (immortal). </p><p>His dreams were full of blood, art and the salty taste of sea spray in his lips.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I don't know why, but when I posted this on 6th of August, it somehow slipped behind a lo of works, so now I'm posting on the 7th and hoping it works</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. When the hope of morning starts to fade</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Sorry for the wait! Another James Copley chapter, but we should get something with Booker soon. I rewrote this one a number of times and I'm not completely happy with it...But it's here. I also updated the tags. If something is not properly tagged, please tell me.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When James next woke up, for a moment he existed. Not caught by the weight of his grief, the compression in his heart that threatened to destroy every joy-tinged recollection and word. Even as he breathed in, trying to drown out the compulsion to keep digging, to know and unearth the secrets the ghosts had, he knew that wasn't what Anne would have wanted for him - not an obsession fueled spree that would end with the numbness of his soul.</p><p>It was what she had saved him from, giving him a new perspective and reminding him of the need not only for knowledge and information, but also to judge for himself what was right, to not trust in orders - to not compromise himself beyond what was strictly necessary.</p><p>He thought about what she would say of his notes. Of the abundance of evidence of immortal warriors that seemed to do only good - to protect the innocent and hunt the criminals from the world. She would have loved it. And it was with that in mind he went back to his research. Not in anger or bitterness as he had ended yesterday, but imagining the wonder and happiness in her face as she looked and commented on the good deeds. Then he changed the direction of his research - not on the immortals themselves (though there was still a curiosity to know more, to hoard the knowledge of what and who they were - a remnant of his training), but on those they saved, in the lives they changed.</p><p>Thrown out of his compulsive behavior, he accumulated fragments of news and places they had gone through. He could almost see Anne' smile at the pictures of women led to safety, children found alive post earthquakes, kidnapping victims rescued after a certain woman appeared. It still hurt. Envy mixing with wonder, grief and gladness - if an immortal (no, not only one, but <b>four</b> of them) still saw something in humanity worth saving,  to keep fighting for it, then he shouldn't do any less than they. </p><p>While he couldn't (wouldn't) go back to CIA, he could still use his skills in different areas to help. As his current interest was in medicine, the obvious choice was to find  an analyst job that would allow him to become more knowledgeable in his chosen project field and make a difference, help in some small way.</p><p>And in the meantime, his collection of deeds, registers and newspaper clips relating  to the ghosts also grew. While he was looking for the names of refugees, he found a later lead, same surname, but for a Nobel's prize - the child of that family invented a new way to identify diabetes and was nominated for the medicine prize for it. He printed and put it along with the photo of Andromache of Scythia (as the woman was called by the Greeks in their odes and poems to her valor and honor in battle) in Montenegro. </p><p>James had a... not  really feeling, but an instinct that this discovery was important, but there were files and data to compile, to certify if the drug in testing was truly safe for his current employer, checking and double checking the standards applied, notes and procedures , and so he drowned in  his work for awhile, knowing that what he was  doing was also important in its own way, and willing to be better (for Anne's memory if for nothing else).</p><p>Months later, when he came back to his own personal project, tracing and linking names and cities, sightings and savings, a pattern began to emerge from the data. At first, it seemed a coincidence - just luck. And yet, the more he found and added to his board, the clearer it became: each time the ghosts saved someone, that person or their descendants gave something back to humanity - be it in contributions to science, art, human rights or ceasing of hostilities, there was always a way they gave back to humanity, as if the ghosts were guided by fate to do so. Or knew they had to save a specific person from a multitude of others. </p><p>Briefly James wondered if they were time travelers - that would also make sense (had they found a way to freeze time, so they would never age?), but his instinct still pointed to immortals over time shenanigans. Looking at his handwritten  annotations, where the words immortal and time travelers were both circled with a question mark on the side, he decided to be glad nobody would see them - he didn't want to have to explain, as the most plausible explanation he could give would be that he had a perfect idea for fictional writing and was researching to start writing, but even that wouldn't excuse the board of Doom as Anne would call his collection of clippings, drawings and theories on these people. </p><p>There was still a scratch, an itch there to know - how did they heal? Were they invulnerable or was their healing just incredible fast? Was it something genetic? Unique to each of these individuals or could it be replicated? Were there more of them? And, perhaps the most important: Could it be reproduced in laboratory to save other people? Those were the questions that he had every night.</p><p>He didn't try to track them himself. He doubted he would be able to do so without alerting them to his interest - and considering the paranoia level they had when taking a job, it would probably be detrimental to his health and life. But he did his best to keep informed of missions they would be interested on or situations they had a historic of getting involved into. Harder and easier that way - too many places, so many heartbreaking happenings - it was like looking at the ocean and realizing it would never stop or drain. It was the same with humanity's worst aspects.</p><p>He was keeping up with one of their missions, the most recent one apparently a self funded one to rescue immigrants from traffickers posing as smugglers. They won, as much as one operation like that can be said to turn out a victory - with an entire 'cargo' of women rescued, the regional contact there dead, but it was still one cell, of a probably giant organization preying on people's despair and need to survive and provide for their families. </p><p>It hit him then, five years since he started his research. Almost seven since the first time he saw them. The realization that it would never really get better. There would never be real peace. Or anything like it while people died - of illness or violence. And even looking at all the good, at the ramification he glimpsed, all the good the people they rescued and their descendants did, for the first time it seemed just a drop in a bucket in the middle of an ocean greed, avarice, lust, wrath and vanity that defined existence, dotted with rotting ships and skeletons - the ruins of corruption barely cleansed by the their actions, no matter how many times they tried and acted.</p><p>He couldn't picture Anne smiling at his actions anymore. She had not been forgotten because there were still photos of their life together, their memories resting in the dust of their favorites books, the DVDs carefully preserved in a shelf, her favorite perfume in the bathroom, even so long after she had last used it. But he didn't know what Anne would have thought of his own conclusion, whether she would agree or rebuke him, casting his eyes to what he had missed (did he miss anything in his research? Was there something more to this situation that he did not see?), if she would help or tell him to stop. And perhaps, it was a selfish wish. Perhaps it was a fool's desire, but he thought that so much more could be done if they truly were immortal (or even time travelers, for that matter).</p><p>Looking at his news feed that alerted him to as many disasters as he could imagine, what he knew (and even what he inferred from their patterns) it was still so... limited, taking into account what was there to do. Or what could be done. (If it was possible to recreate immortality, to make it in a drug or an elixir - so that no one would die, so there would be no reason for violence).</p><p>It took his breath away, that idea. But he would need  to know more, more than he had allowed himself to know, would need to have some contact, find a way to talk to connect (to convince) even if only one of them, of the merit of his idea. Dragging or forcing them would be pointless, he suspects only an army could do so, and to allow a military to get even one of them... Too much would be thrown out of balance, and no country would let that amount of power slip from their hands easily - such research couldn't be rooted in nationalism - if a drug to heal all illness or even to turn someone immortal could be made, it shouldn't be limited to one country or even a region of the world. It should be available to all - the only way to make sure it would be worth it, worth whatever he had to do (he did not let himself believe that there wouldn't be a price attached to getting what he thought would be essential: cooperation. And if that was not possible, to forcibly get what was necessary). </p><p>Though he knew he didn't need all four, he didn't need even one to be fair. If samples could be taken, blood, cells so they could be studied... To understand what made them different, what made them immortal if they truly were immortal. He needed to know more, he needed to see if it was feasible, to do so.</p><p>With his freelance/personal project of working with pharmacy companies, it had been easy to learn more about what was necessary about testing of drugs and the years spent making sure a drug was truly efficient and with as little side effects as possible. (His heart still ached when he read about the families of test patients - it was still too easy to put himself in their place, to hope and dream only to have it crash and burn in front of you, no miracle available as your loved one suffered and you with them, burning yourself to the ground, trying to make something work for them, for a trial drug to just click and a miracle be thrown in your way. There are few miracles outside of Hollywood).</p><p>The question now was: who to make contact with? Who would be more  willing to sit and listen to what he had to say? In both sides of the equation. He needed more manpower, money and connections than he currently had, and more knowledge too, the things he had stopped himself from trying to figure out, the patterns of rest and regions they were found out of combat, the human side of unknown beings that he had known only from pictures, paintings and stories - instead of warriors and mercenaries, the human factor of comfort, hearth and home (would they even consider a place home, when  they were so displaced from their own original time? How did they understand the passing of time and civilizations, of cultures?).</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. World War me Part 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Not completely happy with this chapter - it should have been longer, but I think I hit a natural stopping point and it feels kinda wrong to go over? So, chapter.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>This was one of the bad days. When he could feel the pain of the rope in his throat, his breathing catching and restarting, suffocating (on air this time, not water, not yet) and he had to remind himself the temperature was not freezing, his fingers were still there, it was not cold - he had turned off the air conditioner, but the sweat in his body was cold with dread (he had opened the curtains, letting the high sun warm him, but now with the night arriving, so did his trembling).</p><p>They had each gone their own way - safer, easier this way, for each to heal their own wounds and he knew, it was not a lack of care, knew how Yusuf's eyes had flashed to the past in an instant, how Nicolo's features had been granite-unyielding, Andy's battle screams fueled with an impotent fury of the past - but like a child who denies needing company and alone still wishes for it, he craves the comfort of their presence, selfishly even as he knows they need space too.</p><p>So, with nothing else to do after the rescue, and none of his siblings there, he starts the tedious process of eliminating all evidence of their existence as a way to occupy and distract him from the memories of winter, using programs to hunt down files, images and videos in the internet and to check social medias. Their luck, the last mission had been based in a town around the border, so there's enough images and videos from cameras, both individual and from commercial/government that even with his tools, he has to invade mobile phones and computers to certify that they are clean of evidence. He doesn't know how long he can do this. Fears the day it won't be enough. </p><p>He knows the others have noticed it too, how there are whole cities that they don't operate anymore, because not even he can guarantee their safety, clean their tracks beyond a doubt.</p><p>London is forbidden ground for any but the most heart-wrenching missions, when there is no one else that can take it. Always it ends with a shard less of Andromache's soul (determined eyes, fixed expression, <b>no warmth</b>), ashen faces on Nicky and Joe (guilt and sorrow, lips compressed into silence) and the  feeling that the sea is going to drag him down, salt on his mouth, bubbling screams on his ears. He regrets it every time.</p><p>Their world is smaller. And each decade with its own technological advancements reduces it further, turning their missions more limited in scope and logistics. Will it be soon? The day he can't cover for them anymore, the day he will have failed them as he has failed everyone else... He hopes not. And he dreads that day with everything he has.</p><p>The night turns to day, and the sun warms his face. Headache throbbing, the lack of deep sleep blurs his vision. He has fallen sleep in front of the computer again. Joe would be disappointed. Good thing he's not here to stare at me. His lips twitch into a smile, remembering Joe's tendency to care, far more than he probably should, heart left open to any attack.</p><p>He concentrated again on his laptop, finishing the cleaning job he had to do, checking their email after, separating what he could send along to other groups, what would be best dealt with by a government, what was time sensitive. They would need to lay low again to attract less attention. Maybe in three months or so, they would be able to take them. The flip side of the coin - too much information happening at the same time, in all places of the world and with no true filter, it was easy for the past to get lost in the torrent, files breaking, hardware malfunctioning, memories getting lost in the virtual because there are no truly safe virtual backups - data corruption is still a thing (and one he takes advantage of as much as he can). </p><p>There is a reason he carries Hélène's book with him - even as her scent faded, and the blood spots disturbed the poetry, it helped him remember - the afternoons spent together, learning the profession with her father, the slow courtship until he could call her his wife. He did not need the book's words, but its presence, like the ring in his hand, proved it was real, his past was tangible and hard and true. He understood why Andy kept all her reminders hidden. But he did not have her strength.</p><p>The last email was one he had seen before - and Andy's rule of no repeat clients compelled him to delete it, not even bothering to read. Because if it was something only they could do, and that fit into their morals, he would be obliged to show Andy, and she would bend, if he truly fought for it. But if you did it once, every Jack and George thought they could get you to do it again. And you lose control. And you make it so much easier for people to discover their secret, immortality.</p><p>He has seen the consequences of what happens when they are caught, lived through them on every dream turned nightmare he shares with Quynh (rusted iron all around, water permeating their mouth and soon lungs, impact of their hands on the door not enough - never enough. Salty taste of the ocean follows him back to his dry bed). He is torn between opening it or not. </p><p>And after reviewing all the data he had corrupted, erased or misdirected, without other things to occupy his time, he does so. The email is simple. Information about a potential search and destroy in an entrenched fortress. No way to get out normally, not without heavy casualties and the pieces of a potent chemical weapon in the hands of terrorists, stolen from one of the USA testing grounds. Looking at the information, it seemed to check out. He would have to dig deeper, go higher and lower and see if it was legitimate. But not today. </p><p>He would need his wits for the research needed. The last thing he wanted would be to compromise their safety. And, if he was lucky, some other group would pick up the mission in their stead, so he wouldn't even have to start doing it.</p><p>When he sleeps, he chokes - on water or rope, it doesn't make much a difference. Upon waking he wishes - that like Joe and Nicky and Andy, time passed and erased segments of himself, smoothed away the memories of pain along with the joys it had already stolen away: What color was Pierre's favorite? What was the first document Hélène's father had taught him to forge? Where did they first kiss? He no longer remembers, and that knowledge hurts as much as the remembrances of pain.</p><p>For a time, he had written down every detail he could remember from when he was married, from his (first) family, as a keepsake, as a reminder, as a way to torture himself with his incompetence. But the ink faded away. Blood or rain blurred pages, mice and moths ate away the words and with few places they frequented enough to keep them in order, it was a fool's hope and a silly idea (he still wished it had worked). </p>
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<a name="section0005"><h2>5. World war me part 2 - I will never find peace</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you so much everyone who has commented and sent good thoughts, told me their own experiences and have been just lovely, it brought me a lot of comfort and took away a weight I had over writing. I hope the chapter makes up for the wait.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The last thing he wanted was to get up. But he had facts to check, and a meeting to schedule if everything was legit. The day was warm and he was less tired than usual after passing out near his laptop, the exhaustion dragging him down to a dreamless sleep for the first time that week. </p><p>Hacking was one of the skills their group had most trouble learning, the virtual and the real meshing and clashing, something new that they hadn't expected and couldn't entirely wrap their heads around it. He was the youngest and the only one that even halfway understood how to open doors and bypass firewalls, his criminal antecedents helping even in the changing contexts. The very concept of a human world within a machine was hard for Nicky and Andy to grasp. Joe was faster in accumulating knowledge, his past as a scholar and natural curiosity working to make him the second-best hacker in their four people army - and he would have been a heavy user of social media if Andy hadn't understood how it could be used to trace them and explicitly forbid its use. There were still some Flickr photos of Niccolo around the web from older albums Yussuf had created and 'forgotten' to delete.</p><p>The files were impeccable, sources genuine, no hint of a trap. The mission was in the usual forums for mercenary work, clearly marked and defined. Clear-eyed and rested, there was still something there that screamed trap to him. Terrorism was still a hot topic in the USA. It was understandable they would not want to spread even more the knowledge of the theft, but why not use their black ops agents? Why go for mercenaries? Has it already been tried? The risk deemed too high to try again? Or perhaps it was the opposite: the terrorists wouldn't target the United States, only one of their allies, so it was a low priority, a fool's errand to satisfy diplomacy, with no real intent of an effective response. He was intrigued and annoyed. Because it fits all their requirements and if the terrorists deployed the chemicals in public spaces, it would be a tragedy, and now he had to meet the handler. Again.</p><p>His memory wasn't the best, not like Joe or Nicky who could recite many poems or passages; or Andy for whom memory was a beloved friend and a hated enemy, the duality of her feelings mirroring the way her remembrance seemed to jump from inconsequential details to treasured instances, in a pendular movement, from one side to another. When he is able, Yussuf puts words or faces from her past into ink and paper, fixating them for a moment (years or decades, does it really matter to them?) He has no more recollection about Copley than he does about what he ate three years ago on this same day, but a quick search of his own files reminds him what there is to know about the man. A superficial sweep of the internet shows he's not CIA anymore, retired. Working mainly with pharma industries. Perhaps a favour for a colleague? Or a small test, to see if he still had the knowledge to operate if he had decided to go back to the agency. Too many 'ifs'</p><p>He set up the meeting, sending the date, magnanimously letting the man choose a place. He shouldn't have. The chosen place is a pub called Hanging Man in the area of London. A double wounding, even if not meant as such. It didn't make his temper better, even as he entered the building, knowing Copley would already be inside, waiting for him.</p><p>Approaching the corner table, and sliding into his seat, he studied the man in front of him: lines had formed in his forehead and face, a sense of heaviness in his expression, tiredness in the way his shoulders slumped. Even as Copley turned to him with a smile, greetings and a hand to shake, the... strained? Melancholic? atmosphere persisted.</p><p>"Mr Booker, I am glad to see you again. I am impressed, you haven't changed at all" Copley was smiling by rote, not because he wanted to. Booker would have considered it fitting the current circumstances if in his notes he hadn't written down how calm and collected, professional the man was last time. Again, a red flag. If whatever discomfited Copley was about the mission, it meant it was much worse than he had been able to discover, and if it was something particular about Copley, it could badly affect their ability to complete the job in case they accepted it, as their handler and client was compromised from the get-go. </p><p>"Mr Copley, I have to admit I didn't expect to ever work with you again. And I am still assessing the mission. Please do not consider this an agreement of my group's involvement in your situation. I have serious doubts about your proposal and whether it is feasible. And even if it is, it will cost you. A magnitude more than what was announced, considering all the Intel you are lacking such as what is the substance and probable location. Honestly, it looks like your ex-agency either completely dropped the ball and is in a desperate bid to not call too much attention to the robbery or a poor attempt to pacify an allied nation" he said, watching Copley carefully for any emotion. Any mercenary group would have brought up the lack of information. He wanted to know what was the excuse the handler would give - both for the too-small fee as well as for the lack of care. With luck, he would uncover enough to turn it down and forget about it.</p><p>"Mr Booker, I am afraid I must confess to having my own doubts as well. This is a favour to one of my ex-colleagues. I have retired since we first met each other..." Here, Copley paused, a flash of pain (grief? longing? <em> love </em>) flashed through his eyes, far away from the pub they were currently in. It was a familiar expression, one Booker had seen in Andy's face when she looked at the ocean, that he knew mirrored his own when thinking of the past. In an instant, he wanted to ask - who is your beloved ghost that haunts your existence? Who did you lose?</p><p>"Mr Booker?" Copley's hands were pressed against each other on the top of the table, the minute trembling of his shoulders, the way his breathing hesitated over the 'k'. </p><p>He had said that aloud. Normally he would apologize, he would let it go, but... They had just finished one mission, and here the world was throwing a new one in his lap, one that may call for his family's immortality. And that would still hurt them - physically and mentally because immortal did not mean invulnerable, and he was tired of this same song and dance with no direction and no relief (Carry on my wayward son, For there'll be peace when you are done, but there wouldn't - no peace and no rest, immortality saw to that). The person responsible for the whole mess of a job was in front of him, wounded and bleeding and for once, he pressed. Because the last thing he wanted was to get them embroiled in a botched job, to fuck them up worse than they already were. </p><p>"I believe you heard me, Mr Copley. If we are going to work together again, I need to know more about you - specifically which loss has made a perfectly professional CIA man lose so much composure, and so much of himself that I can't help but note it. Even if you think it won't interfere, you are human, and your grief may distract you and negatively affect your capacity to handle the mission. So, Mr Copley, I must ask again, who did you lose?" And he knew what he was talking about. Each loss feels like an invisible scar (there should be a wound here) that hurts in the most inconvenient times, drawing his attention away from what he should be doing to try to alleviate the pain.</p><p>Copley's expression... For a moment he thought the man would shatter, composure lost. Then Copley seemed to drag himself together, shards of pain still piercing him, but at least he was in control. He sucked in air and deliberately loosened his body.</p><p>"My wife... After we met, she started to show symptoms of ALS. She died... some years ago already, but..." Copley didn't finish the phrase - he didn't need to. It was in the lines of his body, in the way he held himself, in the ring still in his hand.</p><p>Booker felt his own throat tighten, memories and regrets overwhelming him for a moment. His hand goes to his canteen, whiskey and bourbon mixed together. Not now. </p><p>The death scent of their room, just about enough for their bed, Hélène's small and weakened hand, blue skin wrinkled in his, as he cleaned her from her waste, washing her body as much as he could, dread sinking into his gut at the sight of rice-like diarrhoea. No matter what he tried, nothing helped her, the muscles of her hands and legs trembling, as if something was shaking her from the inside, her sweet voice reduced to a whisper he could barely hear. He prayed. Fast and pleading, sweet and harsh. For whatever he had, whatever protected him, to protect her, to heal her instead. It didn't work. He could only watch over her as her gaze became embittered, her smile more and more transforming into a snarl with his inability to do anything for her. Not even her death wish he could fulfil - as soon as she fell sick, he had sent their children to relatives, far from their town to protect them - so he couldn't bring them back for the last goodbye. He watched, useless, as she dried up like a flower exposed to the relentless sun, the disease sapping everything human and dignified from her, leaving an animal's corpse, dried up and cold in its place.</p><p>It was the bell ring from the door of the pub that brought him back to the present, looking again to the handler (Copley, James Copley), seeing his grief, their grief reflected and shared. It shouldn't surprise him, that the sentiment is not only his but... It has been so long. </p><p>Nicky and Joe are together and their troubles are always shared and halved, a concern or a worry smoothed over by beloved hands; and what weighs on Andy isn't just grief, but also another beast called guilt, and they mix with anger and a resolution to not look back that erodes her from the inside out, hollowing a bit more each decade. He hopes it takes more time, hopes he doesn't have to see the complete process, would rather die sooner than that - because he is selfish. He doesn't want to live without someone who understands a little what it means to lose your north and happiness and have the world keep going. </p><p>His own demon is not like that. He was ripped to pieces by Hélène's death, Pierre, Marc and Jamie... What is left of him is the ruins he could find and glue together into a semblance of a man (husband, father, soldier, forger) and none of them truly fit into each other, edges too shattered and sharp to smooth back together into place, the empty spaces too many to be filled.</p><p>He looks at Copley and sees something similar. And it is so tiring, to care... But he does. If he didn't, he would have left the others decades ago, would have holed himself somewhere and just waited for the end, whatever it may have been and been thankful. </p><p>He offers no platitudes, knows them to be only pretty words with a faint hope held by the speaker that time will truly help. It would feel like a disservice to Copley's pain (to his own) to dismiss it. "I am sorry for your loss and for your pain. May her memory always comfort you." He lets the words out as smoothly as he can, however, it is too late. He had flinched and lost time, awash in recollections of worse days.</p><p>"Like memories help you? I admit Mr Booker, I didn't expect... I didn't expect your question, and yes, it does affect me, even perhaps as you suggest, enough to compromise me. But considering your own reactions, it sounds hypocritical coming from you." Copley's eyes were fixed on him. Not for the first time, he wanted to drink, numb the words and remembrances away. After dealing with the agent. Soon.</p><p>"Does it? It is exactly because I went through something similar that I asked you. Or would you have guessed it if I hadn't reacted? Would I have given it away?" Booker snorts and smiles with teeth. He knows he wouldn't have. For good or bad, this was part of a mission, preliminary work. His pain and his drink have no place here. "And having said that, Mr Copley, I believe I asked if you had more information if you would be so kind...?" </p><p>As if reminded of the purpose of their meeting, Copley pulls himself together, a professional veneer papering over the cracks. Light still passes through them, their presence visible, but... better than before. Good. But not enough to disperse his doubts. The agent seems committed to getting him to accept this mission, but too much is unknown. Too uncertain. If it was only him... He wouldn't care so much, but it isn't. At the same time, it feels... it feels like a dereliction of duty to turn it down. Like leaving Pierre when he finally can do something. (He blames Nicky and his fate talk; Joe with his emotional self; and Andy who fights resolutely to make all of it mean something - the lessons he had absorbed from each one of them). So he doesn't tell Copley a permanent no as he walks away, dangling an offer to review any new intel Copley can bring him, and then decide. </p><p>It will take some time to collect more - to make sense of the odds and ends. At least one week. Long enough for him to ignore the world outside of a bottle. He keeps his steps unhurried as he exits the pub. He has a ticket back to France. There is no reason to stay in the United Kingdom when he doesn't have to.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I am looking for a beta for this work - I'm not a native speaker of English and while I try to put my stuff through Grammarly, I have the feeling it may benefit from someone else taking a look at it too. If you see a mistake or something, please tell me! :)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. A fear I can't explain</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Old Guard didn't take the mission in the end. Copley put together enough information to make it feasible and up to his operational standards when they met again, but then the USA government decided to clean its own messes, apparently. That should have been it, case closed, time to disappear in the crowd, clean everything and get as far from Copley as possible, so as to not leave too many traces. He didn't. Copley was the first human being in... years, maybe decades? That he had talked to for more than one time, that seemed to understand that sometimes letting himself sink into the grief you felt was the only way to remember, your own mourning ritual, now shared with someone else. Dragging himself to start again hurt, and he feared it, for what it could mean. He kept in contact with Copley for all the wrong reasons, and he couldn't even fool himself about it. </p><p>It wasn't like Andy and Achilles, where he helped her recover a fragment of herself. Or the way Joe and Nicky would sometimes settle in a city or village in the countryside of a forgotten country, tend to animals, maybe adopt a cat. And then, when it became obvious they couldn't stay without arousing suspicion, leave as if they had to take care of an elderly relative in a far away place, preferably on the other side of the world. It had been hell to delete all he could find from their little vacations, but he couldn't begrudge them peace for as long as they wanted, not when he could see the shadows of years in Niccolo's gaze, or the weariness of passing centuries in Yusuf's shoulders. Even in their worst moments, they were reflections of each other, though with their own twists. He wished he could find somewhere to be in peace like that.  </p><p>The few times he had tried, his drinking had caught the attention of some of the community's womenfolk, some of them offering to keep him company. The times he had accepted, he realised later on that he was seen by most of them as the 'broken man', needing only a 'good woman' to put him on the right track. It was upsetting to be reduced like that. In those moments he could understand partly what Andy felt when someone thought she was "only" a woman, the eye-candy or the prize. No wonder she kept breaking bones. He didn't do anything drastic, only picking himself up and moving. The next tries only gave him an admiration at how Nicky and Joe blended and mixed with their chosen communities so well. On a few of his attempts, the feeling of isolation ended up being worse, even when he could marginally connect with neighbors, as he couldn't tell them many true things about himself. Say he was a forger? Most people would decide he was a criminal. A soldier? "Oh, where did you train/fight? Thank you for your service!". It never felt right, the experience was his, but that wasn't who he was. And even if he told them all of the normal, mundane bits - father, husband, unwilling survivor, the pity grated on his nerves, unwanted, something he didn't deserve. And he could lie, of course, with the best of them. But he didn't want to, not when it came to this.</p><p>So he wallowed, preferring Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Lisboa. Big cities where most people were used to some anonymity, not caring whether their client would come back or not, not asking too many questions so long as he paid rent, didn't break anything and didn't die (permanently) in the apartment. Words from his landlord. Fair enough, considering that even when he tried, he couldn't get immortality to stop working, he doubted that it would in the months he would be staying in that residence just to spit his landlord. Hope springs eternal, so he had still drunk enough to overdose, passing out before he started throwing up and his breathing stopped. Not his favorite type of death, but better than attracting too much attention with a gunshot. The place was marginally well kept, and close enough to the channel that it facilitated his... Friendship? Mourning club? Grief buddy? He doesn't know how to define the connection he felt with Copley.</p><p>Moving on may be healthier than whatever they were doing, but it didn't mean they were ready for it. He could see the agent one day feeling less hurt, or perhaps the hurt of missing memories wounding less than it did now. He hoped so, for him. Because while Andy was right, the remaining memories tore him up to pieces, it wasn't just that - what the time allowed him to remember and have, but also what he forgot, the absence that one day helped make up a fragment of who he was. In what order did he teach Marc the techniques on how to age a document, so it wouldn't instantly draw attention because of its newness? Was he the one who first taught Jaime how to fight? The guilt ate him up. He hadn't been able to save them, and he couldn't even remember details of their lives. Failure upon failure.</p><p>For now, he appreciated not being alone, even if he knew he should disappear. It was already riskier than anything else he had done, those reunions in Parisian cafés or bars, always different ones, hopping and experimenting versions of all the familiar dishes, and some he hadn't eaten before with an ex-CIA agent, someone that had worked with intelligence, who had dedicated his life to finding links between seemingly disparate occurrences. He hasn't found the strength yet, even five months after the day they meet in England. </p><p>Shaking his head, Booker approached today's bar. They prioritized places with good food and reasonably priced drinks - most of the time, he was the only one taking advantage of that later item, Copley's poison of choice was work: whereas before his retirement he hunted down information as a CIA agent, now he compared patterns, verified stories, looked for signs of ethical misconduct or anything that could be <em> damaging </em> to a company's research process. It was palpable, how much he cared, how passionate he was about the protocols in place so the people testing the drugs weren't taken advantage of, that they knew the risks and were treated with dignity. </p><p>His wife's passing had ignited a drive in him - to try and find a cure, as if that would redeem himself, would make the grief easier, or the silent places inside a changed house bearable. He, of all people shouldn't throw rocks on glass houses, especially when his own coping mechanism was normally more damaging than what Copley did - it wasn't as if paperwork would revolt and knife him between the ribs, though on some weeks James looked as if his search for data had entered the night, crossed into daylight and extended over several days, until he looked like a very well dressed and sharp zombie, his hands trembling when going for the cup of tea or food he had ordered, his voice rougher than broken glass. Like now.</p><p>"You should probably sleep sometime between rounds of working, last I knew, eight hours of sleep were still the required time for someone to not die." Booker remarked, sitting opposite to Copley, eyes flitting over the dark circles under his eyes, his faintly pinched expression and the way James was squinting under the lights, even though the interior of the bar was not brightly lit.</p><p>"I could say the same about your consumption of alcohol, considering your breath stinks of it. I am quite sure you should have died already with how much you drink, liver prickled and ready to be exposed as a warning of what not to do with your body" Copley said, nostrils briefly flaring and lips twisted. The other sign he had been working too much: his bad temper. It was amusing how even when he had a headache and looked like he should be passed out somewhere in a dreamless sleep the man could retain some of his tightly held control. Not enough to work as a handler again, but more than most would be able to. He felt his lips twitch. He had died to his crutch, more times than he would care to count, but being immortal, he could afford it. The same couldn't be said about James.</p><p>"Destiny, fate or chance decided it wasn't my time yet. So here I am, no matter how much my carcass wishes otherwise. Besides, it takes years to die of drinking, but if you keep skipping rest, meals and sunlight, I would give you maybe four years maximum. You are not fresh out of college, with your body taking whatever abuse you throw at it and recovering easily. " Booker retorted, calling the attention of their waiter, asking for drinks and food, before focusing again on James. </p><p>The man truly looked like a corpse fresh out of the grave, and he wasn't surprised when he could hear his stomach growl, James' eyes instinctively avoiding his for a moment before he focused back. Booker couldn't help the quirk of his lips for a second, though he didn't comment. His mood today was somewhat better than usual, the aches and pains from his body uncharacteristically muted and Joe and Nicky had sent their infamous postcards. He was still incredulous they could always find new positions and take more and more daring pictures while they were in their favorite places, but it soothed him too, this part of their post-mission routine. </p><p>Hopefully, James' humor would rise when he ate something. It would probably be better if they didn't take too long either, with how tired the man was. But then again, that was unpredictable. Sometimes they traded stories with each other, of what they had lost. Others, they drank and ate in silence, or talked about anything but what they had in common. This time, it seemed they would stay in silence. It was what happened most frequently when James was chasing some thread of information, bothered with a detail that eluded him, or a suspicion of something unethical was occurring in the research he reviewed, or at least what he supposed caused them, as his fellow widow was always secretive about what he was working on, very aware of the non-disclosure agreements he had to sign to work in the area he did. </p><p>The quiet was peaceful, no inane conversation to break it, though Booker had become used to how James would recount movies he had watched, books he had read, voice rising and falling, lulling him out of his memories, keeping him rooted. Sometimes, he reciprocated, with books he himself read, his favorite styles and personal interpretations of favorite passages. </p><p>Booker looked at the rest of the bar, people-watching for a moment, before looking again at James. For a moment, it was as if someone had walked on his grave. A heavy feeling pressing down on him. He shook his head - considering where he would rather be, that could be a good omen, for his standards.</p><p>Their food arrived, and after a few bites, James seemed more human, less likely to pass out on him and have to be carried back to his house, thankfully. Uncharacteristically, James was observing him, as if there was something new or strange since they last met. For a second he wanted to check if he was bleeding, or something, but he didn't feel any pain. Normally, he attributed those spells of his companion to the focus he applied on whatever problem he was chasing after, but those were different - James withdrew far away, mind flying to the facts and conjectures he had. This... was an examination, a close one. He frowned, did he have a piece of food stuck on his teeth? Had James somehow figured out he was immortal? Was it something completely different that he didn't know about? He did his best to appear relaxed, looking back at Copley. Whether because he hadn't noticed he had been staring, or for some other reason, the ex-CIA avoided his eyes, looking at his plate, before taking a sip of his tea and cleaning his throat.</p><p>"I have... a favour to ask. I decided to try and... store or give away some of my wife's belongings, and was wondering if you could help me with it?" Oh, he could understand James' hesitation now. He clenched his teeth, wondering what he should answer. He hadn't expected that question. And would have preferred being asked about his immortality, to be honest. But... he also didn't want to waste the trust James had shown him by asking. </p><p>Stumbling on his words, he agreed even if he still wasn't sure of it himself. Even if he had to go back to England (thankfully, he would be able to avoid staying too long in London). He hoped he would be able to help James, and that the other man didn't regret asking him. A reflection in a flash of a hospital room.</p><p>The rest of their dinner was uneventful, James seemed relieved, but still tired, and he hurried to eat his own food, torn between wondering what exactly he would be helping with, he didn't think he was the best person to be someone else's moral support... And fighting the urge to drink himself into a stupor. He could start researching grief help on Youtube, later today or even tomorrow. By common accord, they parted easily on the bar's door. He didn't bother asking for a date - it wasn't like he had a lot to do beyond drift drunk through the days and wait for news from the others.  His hand automatically went to his canteen. The no-mark cognac in it was cheap, easy to down, and the fire from it kept him warm until he arrived in his room, escaping from his memories.</p><p>He sets an alarm for tomorrow, just so he could look up as much as he could on the internet, before taking out as many bottles with liquor on it as he could from all the places he could remember putting them, as a way to pass the night.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I had hoped to have this complete before, but I had a minor writer's block.</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>My tumblr if anyone wants to talk about the old guard: <a href="https://tocadoguara.tumblr.com/">Tumblr</a><br/></p></blockquote></div></div>
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